Joe Essid directs the Writing Center at the University of Richmond, where he teaches courses in writing and literature. He is a Richmond native who attended the University of Virginia and earned a Master's and PhD at Indiana University. His research interests include technology in the classroom and Southern literary humor. His academic writing has appeared in Computers and Humanities, The Writing Lab Newsletter, and anthologies about technology and writing. He is a contributor to Style Weekly and has appeared in Eighty One and RVA. Ignatius Onomatopoeia is the "avatar" who represents Joe in the game-world Second Life. Ignatius will be wandering the virtual terrain of Second Life while his creator writes here about what may be either "the next big thing" for the Internet or the latest darling of the cyber-hip... the reader can decide.
E-mail contact: jessid@mac.com | Web address: writing2.richmond.edu/jessid

Location: Bliss Garden Center

After fretting about real-life illusions that make the inventions in Second Life ®  seem innocuous, I thought it wise to indulge my taste in beauty.  I keep a garden, and am kept by one, in real life, growing herbs and vegetables from seed and tending them with organic practices. It’s not always easy, though it is rewarding.  When I do get to a really nice greenhouse, I always enjoy strolling along and looking at the plants, garden furniture, and sculptures.

Second Life offers virtual homeowners just that sort of service, but in the case of the Bliss Garden Center, run along with several sims by Luna Bliss, there is no need to start from seed.

Other bloggers have covered Bliss Gardens, the regions around the garden center. So I’ll focus later on the stunning gardens and consider what’s on offer at Ms. Bliss’ personal paradise.

She’s created a stunning range of plants.  My snapshots can only begin to suggest the enormous number of hours of this labor of love. 

More than a few are faithful reproductions of real-life plants I can see blooming outside my window as I write this: bearded irises, English and shrub roses, bunches of flowering herbs.  The trees are well rendered, and they provide grand backdrops for a virtual gardener.  I really like this idea: a gamelike setting where gardeners compete to make the most interesting original creations or even try to replicate aspects of a famous garden like Kew or Bodnant or Richmond’s own Japanese garden at Maymont.  We seem too quick to dismiss such aesthetic play as a waste of time…I consider it painting with virtual plants and, in the case of Bliss many gardens, true works of art.

Other items for sale are whimsical, especially the garden furniture and waterfalls.  The garden center divides plants by types, just as one might in a real greenhouse but there’s one difference.  These plants require no water or degrees of shade or sun, so there’s no need for shade-netting or garden hoses coiled underfoot.

While Bliss’ is no substitute for a real garden center, it does offer a lesson or two about the future of online entertainment.  I keep thinking of the blockbuster release of Grand Theft Auto IV, an event as big as movie premiere and prominently featured in the New York Times.

To most gamers who will dedicate hours and hours playing that game, my strolling about a virtual garden center must seem “lame” indeed.  Some lunkheads, poisoned by testosterone, would even call my desire to pick out just the right plant “gay,” as if having good taste and a love of beauty were not the proper activity for a hetero male.

But most days I’d rather shop for plants—my time in Jessie, packing a virtual gun, aside—than engaging in virtual violence. And if Bliss Garden Center can thrive, then perhaps the future of online play is not so monolithically bleak and violent after all.

Nice thoughts for a glorious Central Virginia spring.  Happy gardening in real life!

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